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We estimate a production-based general equilibrium model featuring demand- and supply-side uncertainty and an endogenous term premium. Using term structure and macroeconomic data, we find sizable effects of uncertainty on risk premia and business cycle fluctuations. Both demand- and supply-side uncertainty imply large contractions in real activity and an increase in term premia, but supply-side uncertainty has larger effects on inflation and investment. We introduce a novel analytical decomposition to illustrate how multiple distinct endogenous risk wedges account for these differences. Supply and demand uncertainty are strongly correlated in the beginning of our sample, but decouple after the Great Recession.

To deliver historically observed factor premiums, long-only factor investing relied heavily on a small number of periods, when factors realized outsized returns in the midst of changing market leadership. This article shows that by rebalancing factor funds more frequently during these periods—rebalancing on a daily basis instead of monthly or biannually—investors would have achieved significantly higher factor premiums, effectively doubling the historically observed premiums of many factors. These findings indicate that to harvest factor premiums to their maximal potential, skill is needed on the part of the fund manager—an ability to tell the right moment to aggressively rebalance. TOPICS: Analysis of individual factors/risk premia, factor-based models, Factors, risk premia Key Findings ▪ Historically, long-only factor investing relied heavily on a small number of periods with outsized returns to deliver factor premiums. These periods coincided with market cycle transitions when the makeup of market leadership changed dramatically. ▪ By rebalancing frequently—daily instead of every month or six months—during market cycle transitions, a factor investor would have achieved significantly higher factor premiums, effectively doubling the historically observed premiums. This finding holds true even after accounting for much higher transaction costs driven by the higher turnover. ▪ Our findings indicate that an ability to tell the right moment to rebalance more frequently may be central to harvesting factor premiums to their maximal potential.

Institutional investors often have to decide which strategy to use across international business cycles. This is especially important during economic and financial crises. The exogenous nature of the outbreak of the dramatic COVID-19 crisis represents a unique opportunity to understand the performance of risk factors during severe economic times across international stock markets. Even more important is to analyze how these factors behave across very different economic crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the Great Recession. Although, the overall results show that the momentum and quality factors are the winners, with the value factor as the loser, this research also reports different responses of factors across crises and countries. The size, value, and defensive factors tend to perform worse during the health crisis relative to the Great Recession, while the momentum factor shows a poor performance during the financial crisis, but a positive one during the outbreak of COVID-19. The quality factor is an extraordinary defensive factor in both crises. Similarly, this paper reports heterogeneous responses of option-implied expected market risk premia across alternative stock market indices, and between the Great Recession and the COVID-19 crisis.

We model the term structure of interest rates that results from the interaction between investors with preferences for specific maturities and risk-averse arbitrageurs. Shocks to the short rate are transmitted to long rates through arbitrageurs’ carry trades. Arbitrageurs earn rents from transmitting the shocks through bond risk premia that relate positively to the slope of the term structure. When the short rate is the only risk factor, changes in investor demand have the same relative effect on interest rates across maturities regardless of the maturities where they originate. When investor demand is also stochastic, demand effects become more localized. A calibration indicates that long rates underreact to forward-guidance announcements about short rates. Largescale asset purchases can be more effective in moving long rates, especially if they are concentrated at long maturities.

Sorting countries by their dollar currency betas produces a novel cross section of average currency excess returns. A slope factor (long in high beta currencies and short in low beta currencies) accounts for this cross section of currency risk premia. This slope factor is orthogonal to the high-minus-low carry trade factor built from portfolios of countries sorted by their interest rates. The two high-minus-low risk factors account for 18% to 80% of the monthly exchange rate movements. The two risk factors suggest that stochastic discount factors in complete markets' models should feature at least two global shocks to describe exchange rates.

I uncover an economic source of exposure to global risk that drives international asset prices. Countries that are more central in the global trade network have lower interest rates and currency risk premia. To explain these findings, I present a general equilibrium model in which central countries' consumption growth is more exposed to global consumption growth shocks. This causes the currencies of central countries to appreciate in bad times, resulting in lower interest rates and currency risk premia. Empirically, central countries' consumption growth covaries more with world consumption growth, further validating the proposed mechanism.

Fixing the investment horizon, the returns to currency carry trades decrease as the maturity of the foreign bonds increases. Across developed countries, the local currency term premia, which increase with the maturity of the bonds, offset the currency risk premia. Similarly, in the time-series, the predictability of foreign bond returns in dollars declines with the bonds’ maturities. Leading no-arbitrage models in international finance do not match the downward term structure of currency carry trade risk premia. We derive a simple preference-free condition that no-arbitrage models need to reproduce in the absence of carry trade risk premia on long-term bonds.

We assess the relationship between monetary policy, foreign exchange risk premia, and term premia including the period at the zero lower bound (ZLB). We estimate a structural vector autoregression including U.S. and foreign interest rates and exchange rates and identify monetary policy shocks through a method that uses high-frequency monetary policy surprises as the external instrument that achieves identification without using implausible restrictions. We split out effects of different types of monetary policy surprises that apply at the ZLB, including forward guidance and asset purchases. This allows us to measure the effects of policy shocks on expectations, and hence risk premia.

We propose a new model of exchange rates, based on the hypothesis that the possibility of rare but extreme disasters is an important determinant of risk premia in asset markets. The probability of world disasters as well as each country’s exposure to these events is time-varying. This creates joint fluctuations in exchange rates, interest rates, options, and stock markets. The model accounts for a series of major puzzles in exchange rates: excess volatility and exchange rate disconnect, forward premium puzzle and large excess returns of the carry trade, and comovements between stocks and exchange rates. It also makes empirically successful signature predictions regarding the link between exchange rates and telltale signs of disaster risk in currency options.

Persistent interest rate differentials account for much of the currency carry trade profitability. \"Commodity currencies\" offer high interest rates on average, while countries that export finished goods tend to have low interest rates. We develop a general equilibrium model of international trade and currency pricing where countries have an advantage in producing either basic inputs or final goods. In the model, domestic production insulates commodity-producing countries from global productivity shocks, forcing final-good producers to absorb them. Commodity-currency exchange rates and risk premia increase with productivity differentials and trade frictions. These predictions are strongly supported in the data.